About HSFF

Himalayan Sustainable Future Foundation (HSFF) embraces three pillars of sustainable development and good governance, which addresses the harmony of nature and human beings in the Nepal Himalayas. Sustainability is the key issue in today’s challenging world and the Himalayas are dynamic but vulnerable due to the unprecedented pressure on the sensitive mountain environment, unsustainable land-use and limited opportunities for livelihood. Conservation of biodiversity combined with indigenous resource management, sustainable tourism and management of protected areas are crucial for the benefit of present and future generations.

The indigenous communities in Nepal have always had a wide range of knowledge and skills in sustaining their livelihoods and cultural values. However, the recent trend of local people migrating to urban areas (often in distant countries) for employment opportunities has endangered these skills and knowledge. The result is that younger generations are more interested in a modern lifestyle. Although their aspirations may be unlimited, they have limited opportunities; increasingly, the younger generations are neglecting the wealth of knowledge and skills necessary to sustainable livelihoods. HSFF encourages a combination of inherited and new skills—through a more participatory, transparent and equal global transfer of technology and practical education—with the goal of creating a more solid foundation on which locals can build a sustainable future.

HSFF’s mission is oriented toward the promotion of four pillars or interdependent systems of sustainability that ensure environmental care and human well being in the Himalayas. They are thus embodied:

Biophysical systems that provide life support systems for all life, human and non-human.

Economic systems that provide a continuing means of livelihood (jobs and living wages).

Social and cultural systems that provide ways for people to live together peacefully, equitably and with respect for human rights and dignity.

Political systems through which power is exercised fairly and democratically to make decisions about the way social and economic systems (operate and) use the biophysical environment.

Sustainability is a new idea to many people, and many find it hard to understand. But all over the world there are people who have entered into the exercise of imagining and bringing into being a sustainable world. They see it as a world to move toward not reluctantly, but joyfully, not with a sense of sacrifice, but a sense of adventure.Donella H. Meadows, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update